New to Sufficient Self but not to being self sufficient

[mississippifarmboy]

Hi everyone. I've been a member on BYC for years but just now joining here. Looking forward to reading up on the different posts. I already see a few people I know from "over yonder".

I'm in the northeast corner of Mississippi, raise a large garden, have fruit and nut trees, a few berries, chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, rabbits, goats, a Jersey milk cow with a heifer calf, a horse, dogs, cats, .... more I'm sure I'm forgetting. I also forage for wild foods like polk and nuts, and when I need to I fish, trap and hunt. I am not and never have been a sport hunter, but I can get the job done when I need the meat.

We raise and preserve a most of our own food, but we are not currently off grid, although I have been at times in the past.

The next step for us is finding people near enough to maybe barter some of our overflow from the garden and such for the things we don't or can't raise ourselves.

Anyway, hello from MFB in Mississippi.

 

[moolie]

 

[so lucky]

Hi, MFB, and welcome to the forum. Sounds like you are far more advanced in self suffieiency than many of us. Congratulations on that. How did your garden do this year? Lots of us had too little or too much rain, and didn't get the harvests we had planned on. Do you plant fall garden?

 

[mississippifarmboy]

Hi, MFB, and welcome to the forum. Sounds like you are far more advanced in self suffieiency than many of us. Congratulations on that. How did your garden do this year? Lots of us had too little or too much rain, and didn't get the harvests we had planned on. Do you plant fall garden?

Thanks.

I'm not advanced really, just raised poor and always had to make do. Over the years it has became a way of life.

Our garden done poor over all this year. The very early spring planting done great. Had the first crop of tomatoes, peppers of several kinds, eggplant, greens, okra and green beans all done excellent due to a very mild spring. We had fairly regular rain, no major storms, just a great garden.
Our main garden was terrible. Not a single potato came up, the corn didn't make, the tomatoes from that planting only produced a few bucketfuls, the peas had hardly any on them, the squash and zucchinni only made enough to give us some to eat fresh, none to can. A hundred foot row of winter squash produced.... one squash. It was hot and dry with no rain at all for two months, and then had a couple of bad windstorms knock all the plants down. Was a waste of time, money and energy. But oh well, that's farming. I'm fencing in the upper 3/4 of the garden with a temporary hot-wire fence this week to turn the hoof stock in to graze it down.
It's still a bit early for our fall planting, but I'm sure praying it will make something.

Our garden is about 100' by 200' total, plus we have a few plants up near the house in containers. I try to keep at least part of the garden producing something most of the year.

 

[Mr.Andersson]

 

[Beekissed]

Good to see you here!!!

 

[lazyday]

and welcome from Missouri

 

[Denim Deb]

from South Jersey. I'd love to hear more about what all you forage for. And, is polk the same as what I know as poke? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytolacca_americana

 

[mississippifarmboy]

from South Jersey. I'd love to hear more about what all you forage for. And, is polk the same as what I know as poke? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytolacca_americana

Thanks for the welcome, and yes Ma'am, it's the same plant. We boil the leaves and tops of the young shoots like turnip greens or mustard greens and the young shoots (under two feet or so) we peel off the hard stringy outer layer and slice it, then bread it and fry it up like fried okra. I can hardly tell the difference in poke and young okra. I remember drinking a tea made from the berries when I was a sprout, but I've heard they are poison and don't know how granny fixed it, so I've never made any myself.

As far as the foraging...

There are lots of things here if you know where to look. Poke, persimmons, black walnuts, hickory nuts, mushrooms of several kinds, creek lettuce, a little ginseng and goldenseal, lots of mayapples, wild onions, arrowhead tubers, wild blackberries, dewberries, huckleberries, plums, crabapples, rose hips, several kinds of mints, cattail tubers, wild honey, muscadines, fox grapes and wild grapes, just a ton of stuff. Used to be a few pawpaw trees around here too along with chesnuts, but I haven't seen one in years.

I don't get out and really look much anymore other than enough to teach the kids a little. My health isn't great so I tend to just hit the spots I know of when I need something from the woods.

I've already got several mature pecan trees here on the farm, a few crab apples, regular apples, pears, cherries, one persimmon tree, grapes, muscadines and sceptidimes and plan on planting more fruit trees every year as long as I live. I might not see them mature, but my kids and grand kids will.

I've been working on the place every day I'm able for 12 years now. I guess I'll be working on it until I die. lol

 

[Denim Deb]

Is the persimmon tree you have the American persimmon or some other type? There are several persimmons in the woods at the nature center where I work, but I haven't seen any of the fruit where I can reach it! And, I LOVE persimmons. Today I was out walking in the woods and saw some wild grapes, just not sure which variety, as well as a bunch of blackberries. We have some mockernut hickories around here, but I've never been able to find any B4 the squirrels get to them! There's also black walnuts, but I don't really like them, so I don't bother to even think about getting them.

I think w/the poke berries, you need to cook them to get the poisons out, but not really sure how to prepare them.